I did not do much today, so this will be a short entry. I went down to the RC to see the movie Billy Elliott. It was a good film. The boy in it was a very good actor. i did not pay attention to his name though. They show the movies at TC with captions for those who do not hear well and that probably was a good idea with this one, because even though they were speaking English, it was not American English and could be hard to understand. Since I grew up learning to read the King James Bible and Shakespeare and watch many channel 11 BBC productions, I usually do not find it difficult to follow, but I know some people do find it hard.
I stopped at the library before I came home and got some DVD’s. I just watched one, a Russian movie of the fairy tale The Princess and the Pea and either they mixed more than one fairy tale together or I did not remember it well because there were stories within the story, of the prince meeting several princesses as he sought one to be his bride. This movie was dubbed in English, so I did not need subtitles. They used Vivaldi music throughout the movie and I enjoyed it. I have always loved fairy tales and folk tales. I think I read every Hans Christian Andersen and Brothers Grimm story. Anytime I find some I am not familiar with, I get them. I have a book of English fairy tales and folktales which I have not started reading yet and one of early American folk tales. I read one creation story in that book from an American Indian tribe, (I don’t remember which one), but is was interesting.
If one compares such stories from various cultures around the world, one will notice that there are many things they all have in common. To me this is strong evidence that it was all the same story originally, but as people separated and language changed, etc., the stories got distorted, like playing the game "Telephone" when you are a child and each person has to whisper to the person next to him/her what the person on the other side whispered to him/her. By the time the last person hears it, the story may have very little resemblance to the original. And, since that was the only way to share historical events or entertain one another before people learned to write, they did get distorted as they passed from person to person and generation to generation. Undoubtedly there were those who deliberately embellished the tales too.
I stopped at the library before I came home and got some DVD’s. I just watched one, a Russian movie of the fairy tale The Princess and the Pea and either they mixed more than one fairy tale together or I did not remember it well because there were stories within the story, of the prince meeting several princesses as he sought one to be his bride. This movie was dubbed in English, so I did not need subtitles. They used Vivaldi music throughout the movie and I enjoyed it. I have always loved fairy tales and folk tales. I think I read every Hans Christian Andersen and Brothers Grimm story. Anytime I find some I am not familiar with, I get them. I have a book of English fairy tales and folktales which I have not started reading yet and one of early American folk tales. I read one creation story in that book from an American Indian tribe, (I don’t remember which one), but is was interesting.
If one compares such stories from various cultures around the world, one will notice that there are many things they all have in common. To me this is strong evidence that it was all the same story originally, but as people separated and language changed, etc., the stories got distorted, like playing the game "Telephone" when you are a child and each person has to whisper to the person next to him/her what the person on the other side whispered to him/her. By the time the last person hears it, the story may have very little resemblance to the original. And, since that was the only way to share historical events or entertain one another before people learned to write, they did get distorted as they passed from person to person and generation to generation. Undoubtedly there were those who deliberately embellished the tales too.
IT'S NEVER TOO LATE! 